beyondbinaryfandomcom-20200215-history
Childhood Sexuality
(coming soon) File:https://media.giphy.com/media/JIyq1NSqOBft6/giphy.gif The repression of non-cisheteronormative orientations leads to significant damage to LGBTQIA+ youth's childhood development. Qu--r kids especially know that there is never a choice made to not be straight, it is something that we tend to be conscious of from a very early age, even if we lack the language to understand it or communicate it. Oedipus Complex One of the earliest psychoanalytical models of childhood sexuality was developed by Sigmund Freud and focused on the development of male cisheterosexuality. The idea seems to be, from my memory, that the boy grows up receiving emotional and spiritual comfort and love from his mother, which develops the basic imprint for all future attraction to women, wanting to return to the state of bliss associated with the pre-natal period inside his mother's womb. The role of the father in the complex is as a rival for the mother's affection. The child grows up seeing the father as his competitor, captured in the tale of the titular prince (Oedipus Rex) who eventually kills his father and marries his mother. Non-Cishet Variations While the complex was initially devised with the cisheteronormative assumption that the child would be a cis-male who is attracted to cis-women, the actual function of the developmental archetypes need not be assigned strictly cis genders, and hence variations on this trajectory may apply to non-heterosexual childhood development. Example 1: For example, a child (with two hormonally-distinct parents) may grow up viewing their androgen-dominant parent as actually more feminine than their oestrogen-dominant parent. The oestrogen-dominant parent, may be perceived as the 'man of the house' and even form the role of the father-figure for the child, despite being socially-coded as the child's mother. The child may then develop a variant of the Oedipus-complex in which they struggle against their oestrogen-dominant parent for the affection of their androgen-dominant parent. Note: If the child is themself oestrogen-dominant, then this would classically appear to be an Elektra complex situation (see below), but since the perceived gender of the desired parent is actually trans-feminine (as opposed to cis-male), the child absorbs this development as oedipal (perhaps influencing the child's own gender identity away from cis-femininity). Elektra Complex The converse case of cisheterosexual development was proposed by Freud's protegé and successor, Carl Jung. This case refers to the development of cisheterosexuality for an oestrogen-dominant child. In this case, the journey of identification concerns an initial rivalry with the oestrogen-dominant parent over the androgen-dominant parent's affection. Classical psychoanalytic theory concluded that (for children with two hormonally-distinct parents) an eventual identification with the hormonally-similar parent is considered to be the normative path of psycho-sexual development. In the cisheteronormative case, the oestrogen-dominant child (assumed to be a girl) confronts her jealousy over her oestrogen-dominant parent's (assumed to be her mother) relationship with her androgen-dominant parent (assumed to be her father). Non-Cishet Variations As with the Oedipus complex, the broad trajectory of this model can still be applied in scenarios where the three individuals are not cis-gender and heterosexual. Example 1: A young trans girl may be androgen-dominant yet still experience a journey of an Elektra, whereby the primary competition felt by the child is with the parent they perceive as being most feminine, fighting over the attention of the parent the child views as most masculine. Divergences Under the social influences of cisheteronormativity, the above two models are considered somewhat normative paths to cisheterosexual maturity. Divergent sexual development can lead to feelings of being 'abnormal' due to the strongly enforced gender and sexuality norms of cisheteronormative society. Divergent paths can be variations of the classic Oedipus and/or Elektra complexes, or combinations of both, or neither, or something completely different. Unfortunately not enough study has been done on this to know. Category:Sexuality Category:Neurology Category:Neurodiversity Category:Queer Theory Category:Psychology